


Dreams

by alecmagnuslwb



Series: Shadowhunters Post Canon Stories [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, all the other's are mentioned mostly, fluff and introspection, helen blackthorn is in love and and deserves the whole wide world, heline being cute as hell and helen being a boss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 09:38:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19104517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alecmagnuslwb/pseuds/alecmagnuslwb
Summary: Helen begins her new job at the New York Institute and ponders the future.





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you reading my [Malec post-canon series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1360348) this would be set not long after [Passing the Torch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948346) 😊 Also, one could argue this is a sort of sequel to [this Alec and Aline friendship fic.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660589)

Helen had been surprised in some ways when Isabelle had offered her the position of Weapons Master at the New York Institute. She knew Isabelle trusted her and she was certain they were close friends now, but after everything that had happened with Project Heavenly Fire she wasn’t sure she’d ever hold another position of authority within their world no matter what friends she was lucky enough to make.

She’d been ashamed of her involvement in what happened there, even though she knew she hadn’t been aware and played no direct hand in the despicable stripping of Downworlders identities without their permission. Helping Simon and Raphael destroy the supply and get out of the Clave prison hold with completely expunged records had made some of the weight of it all lift from her shoulders, but she still thought her career was over. That at best she’d be a soldier, diligent in the field for the rest of her life or at worst the Clave would delegate her down to cleaning services to waste away until the end of time.

But instead here she is. In the New York Institute, one of the largest and most respected Institutes in the world, the epicenter of change and evolution in their world, in the main weapons room and it’s all hers. She is the first half downworlder, half Shadowhunter to ever hold a position of power in an Institute in history and on top of all of that she’s also openly bisexual and dating the Consul’s daughter.

She well and truly never thought she’d be here.

She runs her fingers along the blades on the far wall a little wistfully, but also taking a mental inventory as she goes. Science was something she’d always had an interest in, her assignment to the Heavenly Fire project had been a result of that, but knowing the ins and outs of a weapon had been something she’d always excelled at since she bore her first rune. In some ways this position is a dream job she never realized she’d wanted.

Isabelle has given her free reign to do as she pleased with the room, but for the most part she’s kept the same set up her predecessor had. She’s added a few personal touches here and there though. A photo of her and Aline sits on the desk alongside one of her siblings when they were all much younger and she’s placed a few potted plants around the room, always in tune with nature and her Seelie side.

She moves across to the other side of the room after surveying the line of seraph blades. It’s a fairly new addition to the weapons room, after Magnus’ brief time without magic Isabelle had sought out and added non-adamas weapons to her collection just in case the need would ever arise for her brother-in-law to fight. Since then the wall has grown extensively including blades with no silver of any kind safe for werewolf use and a few Seelie blades graciously provided by Meliorn at the last Cabinet meeting. It’s Helen’s favorite part of the room.

This wall is one small show of the change that’s happening in their world, the change that will no doubt continue to sky rocket with the Lightwood-Bane’s now in charge at the highest levels.  It’s a symbol of their people acknowledging they can’t do this alone, that Downworlders are their equals and serving their needs is just as important as serving their own. It’s her two halves reconciling and on display. She hopes one day soon she’ll be instructed and allowed to make this whole room a mix of weapons both for Shadowhunters and their Downworlder allies; that it will become a mandatory thing for every weapons master across the world to do the same.

“Settling in nicely I see,” a familiar, loving voice says from the doorway breaking Helen’s attention away from the intricate Seelie knight sword she’d been admiring. She smiles as she turns stepping closer to the doorway where her girlfriend stands hip cocked leaning against it. She leans in for a brief, soft kiss in greeting.

“Liaison Penhallow,” she teases as she leans back. Aline smiles, her nose scrunching up adorably at the title. She’d always had some say and knowledge in what was happening on the higher levels with who her mother is, but the new official title that allows her to have a constant direct portal to New York, to Helen, has made her girlfriend happier than she’d ever admit out loud.

Aline steps around her gripping her hand as she goes to pull Helen further into the room. She pulls them to a stop by her workbench automatically reaching out to tug Helen in by the waist to bring her closer. She goes easily, she always has from the second she met Aline.

“Have I mentioned how much you’re going to kick ass at this new job?” Aline says as she twines her hands together behind Helen’s back caging her in comfortably.

Helen hums playfully and teases, “Perhaps one or two times.” More like one or two thousand times admittedly. Helen’s fairly certain Aline had been more excited than she was when the fire message with the offer came through and Helen had been pretty damn excited.

“Good,” Aline says before leaning in to kiss her again Helen making sure this one last a little longer. It’s still so new for them, to be this, to do this. They’ve been together a little over three months and they’re already talking about wedding plans and the possibilities of forever. At first she hadn’t even blinked, but then one day the realization of how fast things had been moving hit her. Her Shadowhunter upbringing understood the urgency and pace at which love moved for her kind, but her Seelie upbringing, her immortal lifespan had another exact opposite reaction. She sought out Magnus for advice, he and Alec becoming dear friends to her of late, who’d simply laughed.

“I might not be the best person to ask about relationship time span etiquette these days, I use to be so cautious, but then I met Alec. He and I decided to move in together, got engaged and married all within the span of about five days and then a month later he became immortal. We never took it slow, exactly,” he’d said still laughing a bit, but with an adoring smile on his face. “But since you’re asking I’ll tell you this, when you know, you know. Once you get out of your own way and see it, it’s as simple as that.”

It had clicked for Helen in that moment. She knew. Aline was the only one she’d ever want.

Aline pulls back from the kiss eventually, leaning in one last time for a brief peck before she turns to the side twisting the picture frames on the workbench around. She runs a finger along the one of Helen’s family, a family that had adored Aline from the second they met her, then picks up the one of the two of them.

It’s a picture they had jokingly had Isabelle take of them in one of the grand halls in Alicante after they’d had dinner with her and Simon one evening and learned something new about the mundane world. At dinner a group of teenagers had entered the restaurant dressed in frilly dresses and matching tuxes. When the three women had inquired what it meant Simon had explained to them what a prom was which had led to the description and many slideshows of what a cheesy prom photo looked like. Aline had decided then and there she needed to have a picture like that of the two of them.

So, a couple weeks later after Isabelle had officially been promoted and Alec and Magnus had made the move Alicante the three women had been called to the city and while waiting outside of a meeting hall for Aline’s mother to finish up Aline handed her phone to Isabelle and pulled Helen under a runed arch nearby sliding Helen’s arms around her waist from behind.

“We look pretty cute here,” Aline says smiling down at the picture. They do, it’s true, it’s a little corny, but the happiness and joy and love they feel when they’re together is radiating from them.

“We always look cute,” she replies cheekily. Aline laughs in agreement.

They talk quietly for a bit still in the circle of one another’s arms when suddenly Aline’s phone sounds an alert. She groans pulling it from her pocket and reading the message quickly.

“I have to go,” she says with a pout that Helen leans in to kiss off of her lips.

“It’s okay,” Helen says truthfully. They have a room here at the Institute and a small apartment in Alicante with direct portals to one another, no matter where work takes them they’ll fall in bed together that night. Plus, they have dinner plans to go to the new vegetarian place downtown that Helen’s been dying to try for weeks and she won’t let her girlfriend back out on it no matter the Clave crisis she’s needed for. “I’ll see you for dinner at seven?”

Aline nods pulling away from Helen and placing one last sweet kiss to her lips as she goes.

Helen gets back to work after that. She updates her inventory entirely, shines every blade till it gleams, repairs a few seraph blades Jace had dropped by earlier with an apology and a promise of covering at least two of her night patrols for making her work so much on what’s only her first official day on the job and makes a plan for refurbishing the old adamas axe that had been dug out of inventory just before she’d officially settled in to the Institute. Isabelle drops by to check in and gives her a plate of questionable tasting, but well meaning, cookies as a welcome present; Simon drops by a little later to do the same, but with a bag from a bakery and sighs fondly when he sees the familiar plate.

“Sorry I didn’t get here before you tried to eat one,” he sighs gesturing to the half-eaten cookie on the top of the pile.  

“You should be,” Helen gravely responds.

She texts Aline throughout the day, laughing at her girlfriend’s woe at being trapped in a series of dull meetings alongside Alec. Aline stops texting her around four o’clock when Helen sends her a particularly enticing text, promising some specific plans for their evening. The radio silence makes Helen chuckle, she knows the text inspired her to work even faster to get out of the meeting.

By the end of the day she knows this is her dream job, possibly in her dream location surrounded by friends who are quickly becoming family. She settles the last of the repaired seraph blades on her workbench when the clock hits 6:30 signaling it’s time for her to call it a day. She smiles as she looks back at the room before shutting off the lights and sets off to have dinner with her dream girl.

**Author's Note:**

> So I couldn’t find definitively if half Seelies are immortal for some reason, so I decided that they are and implied maybe Aline will be calling Catarina up about that immortality potion she made for Alec 😊 
> 
> tumblr: alecmagnuslwb


End file.
